Sony is a large publicly traded company spending millions upon millions on a game that has seen several iterations.
Niche market?
This is how it really went down...
"EQ used to be THE big thing and then WoW stole our thunder..."
"What do we do?"
"We take it right back!"
EQ Next will be aiming for the largest audience it can get.
EQ Next is a pure sandbox.
Sandbox is a niche market within the MMO genre.
They will sell a few million boxes, but they won't be able to retain that number of subs.
That's because you are thinking of EQ Next as being like "the other sandboxes that have come before it".
They are making a paradigm shift and I think you should as well. This is not going to be like the other sandboxes that have come before it. And if it was then I would heartily agree with you.
However, the reason why sandboxes haven't necessarily gained traction is partly because of quality but also because you essentially are dropped into a space and you have to supply direction. A lot of people aren't interested in that. They are interested in "playing a game", given tasks and accomplishing them.
But EQ Next seems to have tackled that. They are giving players procedurally generated explorable areas, high customization, huge server wide public quests, including a minecraftesque add on game that will allow players to affect the main game world. They had (as many companies now have had) a realizatoin that writing thousands of "the same quest" where you get x and kill y" is not viable anymore.
If all you get out of it is "EQ Next is a sandbox and 'sandbox = niche'" then you are not really seeing the large picture.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Actually they openly admit they took EQ1 and made a casual version of it... no i am not being sarcastic lol. It's not a stretch by any means to think they will do it again.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, of course. This is how all businesses function, not just in the video game industry. I'm pretty certain this is why they are revamping "Titan" at the moment. They are waiting to see what EQN reveals as time goes on and then will have meetings in order to come up with ways to improve upon what has just been revealed.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, I think they will use as many features as they can that they also find useful from their own market research. It also depends on how late they are in their development cycle to start adapting some of EQNs better features, and their engines limitations.
Its just Blizzards thing, they are brilliant business people, they copy features, and do major releases/patches to cut in on other game releases or news. I also think they are the reason why EQN/SOE is sorta tight lipped on the project.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
I like Blizzard, but tbh they copied warhammer fantasy (Warcraft) And 40.000 (Starcraft).
They'll take things from the top MMO's, like EQN, GW2 and FFXIV then improve on them in every single way, and then be called the next best thing. Because, well, Titan will be the next best thing since WoW.
Blizzard is good at what it does, no one can deny that.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
I like Blizzard, but tbh they copied warhammer fantasy (Warcraft) And 40.000 (Starcraft).
And pray tell what game was original?
Taking ideas from others and improving on them is how technology evolves over time.
This has been going on even before current day humans were even on this planet!
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
I like Blizzard, but tbh they copied warhammer fantasy (Warcraft) And 40.000 (Starcraft).
And pray tell what game was original?
Taking ideas from others and improving on them is how technology evolves over time.
This has been going on even before current day humans were even on this planet!
Sony is a large publicly traded company spending millions upon millions on a game that has seen several iterations.
Niche market?
This is how it really went down...
"EQ used to be THE big thing and then WoW stole our thunder..."
"What do we do?"
"We take it right back!"
EQ Next will be aiming for the largest audience it can get.
EQ Next is a pure sandbox.
Sandbox is a niche market within the MMO genre.
They will sell a few million boxes, but they won't be able to retain that number of subs.
What facts are there to back this up? If anything facts point towards a themepark themed Sandbox element with a minecraft game.
Games like EVE, DF:UW, CU, and PFO are true sandbox games where it is limitless to what one can do. Unlike EQN where there are set predefined paths, like rally calls. There is no variety outcomes but only one set predetermined outcome where it waits on players to complete. And there is absolute zero word on PvP which the vast majority want a segregated form of PvP where it doesn't interfere with PvE.
Blizzard is likely waiting on how EQN turns out, could be the next big thing or could be the biggest flop in history since rabid fans keep on talking it up. Blizzard will evaluate and improve upon the design and fix the many flaws like they did in the past. Blizzard KNOWS how to build MMOs which WoW attests to.
If the game does well... you can expect a lot of companies to "copy" the parts that they believe made it do well.
If it falls flat on its face... not so much.
I'm not talking about a prediction of the success/failure of EQN. I am simply stating what I believe would happen depending on the success or failure and of course that is in the business definition of those things.. not the forum version.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
Ego check for Ego13:
First, no need for the " /sarcasm", because you are right on the money. But not only for blizzard, all companies look at what other companies are doing and bring in ideas they feel work well. If you do not learn from others, you are doomed to fail. It's not underhanded, it is just how the world works.
Second, "you and many others predicted 'exactly' what EQN would be before the unveil?", O man, this is just too good to pass up. Lets get a few of your quotes from before the reveal:"
"They won't do anything ground-breaking (and if they do I'll GLADLY eat my own words) so the game will just be; Spam for group....wait....spam for group.....get in group....grind for the time you have......say 'thanks everyone'.....log out."
"They won't be able to change the way you progress in the game in such a dramatic way that my argument (That sandbox progression is the same as themepark progression as it pertains to groups) isn't valid. I can already think of a couple ways they could make.
"I am deeply skeptical that they would be changing everything we know about combat somehow....it's almost all been done before, which means it will be common-place for all of us."
O, and my personal favorite, about 2 weeks before the reveal you said:
"everyone is hoping for a sandbox, get ready to be disappointed..."
You are an intelligent person, and I will give you this: you did state that PvP wasn't going to be one of the building blocks of EQN, but to state such a grandiose claim that you and others knew "exactly" what was going to come out in the reveal, was very wrong. At best, you made educated guesses, like the rest of us lowly folk, and just like us, you were wrong on most accounts.
Back on the topic on hand though, Knowing Blizzard, they will find a way to incorporate some of the key concepts of EQN, without infringing on copyrights. Its only natural that successful concepts get copied, and unsuccessful ones get dropped. Mainly, the emergent AI, and the auto quest systems are mayor "copy able" tools that can increase the playability of any MMO out there, and they would be fools to not try to implement these tools at least in part.
I don't think Blizzard will copy EQN when it turns out to be the next big thing.
I KNOW they will
Yah, someone has been sniffing their feces again.
EQN is aiming for a niche market.
Titan is already in development.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
I like Blizzard, but tbh they copied warhammer fantasy (Warcraft) And 40.000 (Starcraft).
And pray tell what game was original?
Taking ideas from others and improving on them is how technology evolves over time.
This has been going on even before current day humans were even on this planet!
Sony is a large publicly traded company spending millions upon millions on a game that has seen several iterations.
Niche market?
This is how it really went down...
"EQ used to be THE big thing and then WoW stole our thunder..."
"What do we do?"
"We take it right back!"
EQ Next will be aiming for the largest audience it can get.
EQ Next is a pure sandbox.
Sandbox is a niche market within the MMO genre.
They will sell a few million boxes, but they won't be able to retain that number of subs.
What facts are there to back this up? If anything facts point towards a themepark themed Sandbox element with a minecraft game.
Games like EVE, DF:UW, CU, and PFO are true sandbox games where it is limitless to what one can do. Unlike EQN where there are set predefined paths, like rally calls. There is no variety outcomes but only one set predetermined outcome where it waits on players to complete. And there is absolute zero word on PvP which the vast majority want a segregated form of PvP where it doesn't interfere with PvE.
Blizzard is likely waiting on how EQN turns out, could be the next big thing or could be the biggest flop in history since rabid fans keep on talking it up. Blizzard will evaluate and improve upon the design and fix the many flaws like they did in the past. Blizzard KNOWS how to build MMOs which WoW attests to.
Then you obviously don't know what a sandbox game is.
They said they were going hardcore sandbox, and they are delivering on that promise.
Who is this vast majority that don't want OW PvP? Who are you to speak for this majority?
Blizzard isn't waiting on EQN! That makes no logical sense at all.
You are letting your fandom of this game or this IP drastically sway your opinion.
Between all of the pro-WOW, EQN haters and EQN lovers, I think a lot of people have lost perspective on some historical points because of what happened at "peak" and not what happened at the time.
First thing to realize, is that EQ1 was not a "niche" game. It had (at peak) 500,000 players. Realize this was back in the stone ages (relatively speaking) of the internet and MMOGs. I still remember the jokes about "evercrack" and hearing stories about how it broke up marriages. This wasn't a niche response at that time.
Innovation was frequently on SOE's radar. Look at the initial offering of SWG, which occurred a mere two years before WOW's release. There were over 400,000 players at launch. I remember how packed those servers were (this was actually my first MMOG experience). This was radically different than any other game out there (let's leave CU out of it for a while). The Star Wars IP also attracted others to it who wouldn't play a fantasy RPG, just because it was Star Wars.
Forward up to right before WOW's release, you had two very healthy (for their time) MMOs. Both were very different. EQ started waning just before Warcraft, but it was also a pretty aged game and the model was pretty bad for new player retention - death, losing all one's items, taking a year to get to level cap (if you wanted to play with your friends).
These were three pretty healthy ones if you count City of Heroes, which came out just a few months before WOW and filled another niche which wasn't satisfied by the others. CoH espoused slow leveling and the illusion of choice system, had a lighter death system
WOW had lots of great ideas, which ended up defining the genre. It was stupid-simple, soft on player death, and incorporated pretty much all of the major features into a medium-paced leveling system which was far faster than the other offerings (made for dummies themepark, as well).
What I never hear, however, was that the launch numbers (while healthy) were just below the numbers of SWG's launch. It wasn't an overnight success - MMOGs were not well-advertised until Blizzard stepped in - at launch getting about 250,000 players. The "millions of subscribers"? That took hard marketing dollars and a dumbed-down for average people approach, which wasn't quite there at release. It did happen pretty early in, but let's not kid ourselves, those commercial spots put it on people's radar. Until you saw the commercials, most of the players had never even heard of an MMO before.
I distinctly remember the "noob" influx happening while we were raiding BWL for a few months, and we had already hit 60 for some time (and I had decided to try grinding factions, which at that point was a nightmare 4-hour a day task). The lveling was not as fast as it used to be, and they did increase leveling speed pretty early on (after we had a couple months up to 60, it turned into about half of that). Anyhow, I just wanted to say that yes, WOW copied, ripped off, or made use of every major or minor MMO feature which came out. What they did differently was how they approached a player retention model. It was "casual" (compared to the other offerings at the time).
But to say that MMOs before WOW were not inventive, or were all EQ clones, wasn't even close to the truth. And to attribute the "lack of success" that the other MMOs had... that's just ludicrous. They were insanely successful. And, if I may say, a bit of "re-writing history". WOW got people into the game through the sheer amount of money they were pouring into TV ads, online ads, and pretty much every media outlet. They kept those players by having a simple, easy-to-play on-rails game that wasn't overly harsh on players or complicated to understand.
As to EQN, I think the dev team is on the right track with innovative ideas. Whether they actually come to fruition or not is another matter entirely, and will be what make it a WOW-killer or not. As far as Titan, there was a reason Blizzard went back to the drawing board last year, and I suspect it was industry inside information about what was on the horizon in the MMO genre. Stupid, they are not. Will they copy? Of course. But they will do it "better" in many regards than SoE, and it will be several years after EQN and even MMOG 2.5 are released. But EQN (if promises are actually delivered) will see several years in the limelight, if they actually innovate the MMO as we know it. If not, it will end up being a niche game. But their niche games are anything BUT unsuccessful.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
I wouldn't put it passed them.
However, Titan's already started development. So unless they feel like they can afford to wait another 3-6 years to release it, there's a limit to what they will be able to steal. They can try and pretend like their game has all the same features (which they did quite often in WoW), but there's a good chance they won't actually be able to replicate the tech being used in EQN, unless they've either:
a) already built their game around the same tech
or
b) decide to completely re-build their game from the ground up.
I have no idea how much resources they've dumped into Titan already, or at what stage of the development process the game currently is. However, if it's even remotely far along, (B) might be difficult to pull off.
Absolutely. They modeled and copied their whole Warcraft Universe from Warhammer. They copied systems from DAoC and EQ and streamlined/improved them. Why wouldn't they steal ideas from other games and make them their own going forward? They are the Bill Gates of the MMORPG World.
Originally posted by Leiros So, as I was watching the EQN reveal last week I couldn't help but imagine a group of Blizzard devs scribbling furiously with their pens and clipboards as the "new features" were being unveiled. Does anyone else feel like Blizzard is just waiting copy and then improve upon whatever EQN has to offer?
Yes, this is exactly it. Blizzard who has clearly copied everyone since the beginning of gaming and never done anything original is just sitting back waiting for the ideas to roll in from other developers so they can steal them and use them.
Seeing as myself and MANY other people predicted EXACTLY what EQN would be before the unveil it's not hard to say that Blizzard also could easily see where the market is going as well and was already developing in that direction. The best part was sitting in the chat room before the unveil and having everyone flame me for saying that it would make sense for them to do randomly generated worlds with action-based combat, then to watch the unveil and laugh.
Actually, that is technically correct. After all, their biggest IPs, Warcraft and Starcraft, were "stolen" from Warhammer and Warhammer 40K respectively.
Well, maybe stole is too strong a word, but your sarcasm is not as off the mark as you think.
I assure you, I'm far more educated and knowledgeable about these IPs than you seem to be and I'm right on the mark, actually.
If you want to make such examples then Warhammer "borrowed" from LOTR. Yes, of course, each game builds off each other this isn't news. I'll direct you to my sig.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
It doesn't really matter. The ones with the better game will come out on top, copying won't affect the outcome.
I remember when Warhammer Online was coming out; some people were under the impression that because Warcraft copied Warhammer, automatically that'd make Warhammer kill Warcraft. It did not.
Copying is irrelevant to success beyond making good choices about what to copy.
Comments
EQ Next is a pure sandbox.
Sandbox is a niche market within the MMO genre.
They will sell a few million boxes, but they won't be able to retain that number of subs.
That's because you are thinking of EQ Next as being like "the other sandboxes that have come before it".
They are making a paradigm shift and I think you should as well. This is not going to be like the other sandboxes that have come before it. And if it was then I would heartily agree with you.
However, the reason why sandboxes haven't necessarily gained traction is partly because of quality but also because you essentially are dropped into a space and you have to supply direction. A lot of people aren't interested in that. They are interested in "playing a game", given tasks and accomplishing them.
But EQ Next seems to have tackled that. They are giving players procedurally generated explorable areas, high customization, huge server wide public quests, including a minecraftesque add on game that will allow players to affect the main game world. They had (as many companies now have had) a realizatoin that writing thousands of "the same quest" where you get x and kill y" is not viable anymore.
If all you get out of it is "EQ Next is a sandbox and 'sandbox = niche'" then you are not really seeing the large picture.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Yes, of course. This is how all businesses function, not just in the video game industry. I'm pretty certain this is why they are revamping "Titan" at the moment. They are waiting to see what EQN reveals as time goes on and then will have meetings in order to come up with ways to improve upon what has just been revealed.
Yes, I think they will use as many features as they can that they also find useful from their own market research. It also depends on how late they are in their development cycle to start adapting some of EQNs better features, and their engines limitations.
Its just Blizzards thing, they are brilliant business people, they copy features, and do major releases/patches to cut in on other game releases or news. I also think they are the reason why EQN/SOE is sorta tight lipped on the project.
I like Blizzard, but tbh they copied warhammer fantasy (Warcraft) And 40.000 (Starcraft).
They'll take things from the top MMO's, like EQN, GW2 and FFXIV then improve on them in every single way, and then be called the next best thing. Because, well, Titan will be the next best thing since WoW.
Blizzard is good at what it does, no one can deny that.
And pray tell what game was original?
Taking ideas from others and improving on them is how technology evolves over time.
This has been going on even before current day humans were even on this planet!
http://kotaku.com/5929161/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-saved-wow
What facts are there to back this up? If anything facts point towards a themepark themed Sandbox element with a minecraft game.
Games like EVE, DF:UW, CU, and PFO are true sandbox games where it is limitless to what one can do. Unlike EQN where there are set predefined paths, like rally calls. There is no variety outcomes but only one set predetermined outcome where it waits on players to complete. And there is absolute zero word on PvP which the vast majority want a segregated form of PvP where it doesn't interfere with PvE.
Blizzard is likely waiting on how EQN turns out, could be the next big thing or could be the biggest flop in history since rabid fans keep on talking it up. Blizzard will evaluate and improve upon the design and fix the many flaws like they did in the past. Blizzard KNOWS how to build MMOs which WoW attests to.
If the game does well... you can expect a lot of companies to "copy" the parts that they believe made it do well.
If it falls flat on its face... not so much.
I'm not talking about a prediction of the success/failure of EQN. I am simply stating what I believe would happen depending on the success or failure and of course that is in the business definition of those things.. not the forum version.
Ego check for Ego13:
First, no need for the " /sarcasm", because you are right on the money. But not only for blizzard, all companies look at what other companies are doing and bring in ideas they feel work well. If you do not learn from others, you are doomed to fail. It's not underhanded, it is just how the world works.
Second, "you and many others predicted 'exactly' what EQN would be before the unveil?", O man, this is just too good to pass up. Lets get a few of your quotes from before the reveal:"
"They won't do anything ground-breaking (and if they do I'll GLADLY eat my own words) so the game will just be; Spam for group....wait....spam for group.....get in group....grind for the time you have......say 'thanks everyone'.....log out."
"They won't be able to change the way you progress in the game in such a dramatic way that my argument (That sandbox progression is the same as themepark progression as it pertains to groups) isn't valid. I can already think of a couple ways they could make.
"I am deeply skeptical that they would be changing everything we know about combat somehow....it's almost all been done before, which means it will be common-place for all of us."
O, and my personal favorite, about 2 weeks before the reveal you said:
"everyone is hoping for a sandbox, get ready to be disappointed..."
You are an intelligent person, and I will give you this: you did state that PvP wasn't going to be one of the building blocks of EQN, but to state such a grandiose claim that you and others knew "exactly" what was going to come out in the reveal, was very wrong. At best, you made educated guesses, like the rest of us lowly folk, and just like us, you were wrong on most accounts.
Back on the topic on hand though, Knowing Blizzard, they will find a way to incorporate some of the key concepts of EQN, without infringing on copyrights. Its only natural that successful concepts get copied, and unsuccessful ones get dropped. Mainly, the emergent AI, and the auto quest systems are mayor "copy able" tools that can increase the playability of any MMO out there, and they would be fools to not try to implement these tools at least in part.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
And that proves what exactly? Did you not read my post? Every game rips ideas off of other games!
Then you obviously don't know what a sandbox game is.
They said they were going hardcore sandbox, and they are delivering on that promise.
Who is this vast majority that don't want OW PvP? Who are you to speak for this majority?
Blizzard isn't waiting on EQN! That makes no logical sense at all.
You are letting your fandom of this game or this IP drastically sway your opinion.
Until WOW came along, the whole MMORPG genre was a niche market.
Until Minecraft came along... was there even a market for pixellated block-building games?
If you're really good, you end up changing that sort of thing.
I have no doubt SOE is shooting for the masses with this one.
Between all of the pro-WOW, EQN haters and EQN lovers, I think a lot of people have lost perspective on some historical points because of what happened at "peak" and not what happened at the time.
First thing to realize, is that EQ1 was not a "niche" game. It had (at peak) 500,000 players. Realize this was back in the stone ages (relatively speaking) of the internet and MMOGs. I still remember the jokes about "evercrack" and hearing stories about how it broke up marriages. This wasn't a niche response at that time.
Innovation was frequently on SOE's radar. Look at the initial offering of SWG, which occurred a mere two years before WOW's release. There were over 400,000 players at launch. I remember how packed those servers were (this was actually my first MMOG experience). This was radically different than any other game out there (let's leave CU out of it for a while). The Star Wars IP also attracted others to it who wouldn't play a fantasy RPG, just because it was Star Wars.
Forward up to right before WOW's release, you had two very healthy (for their time) MMOs. Both were very different. EQ started waning just before Warcraft, but it was also a pretty aged game and the model was pretty bad for new player retention - death, losing all one's items, taking a year to get to level cap (if you wanted to play with your friends).
These were three pretty healthy ones if you count City of Heroes, which came out just a few months before WOW and filled another niche which wasn't satisfied by the others. CoH espoused slow leveling and the illusion of choice system, had a lighter death system
WOW had lots of great ideas, which ended up defining the genre. It was stupid-simple, soft on player death, and incorporated pretty much all of the major features into a medium-paced leveling system which was far faster than the other offerings (made for dummies themepark, as well).
What I never hear, however, was that the launch numbers (while healthy) were just below the numbers of SWG's launch. It wasn't an overnight success - MMOGs were not well-advertised until Blizzard stepped in - at launch getting about 250,000 players. The "millions of subscribers"? That took hard marketing dollars and a dumbed-down for average people approach, which wasn't quite there at release. It did happen pretty early in, but let's not kid ourselves, those commercial spots put it on people's radar. Until you saw the commercials, most of the players had never even heard of an MMO before.
I distinctly remember the "noob" influx happening while we were raiding BWL for a few months, and we had already hit 60 for some time (and I had decided to try grinding factions, which at that point was a nightmare 4-hour a day task). The lveling was not as fast as it used to be, and they did increase leveling speed pretty early on (after we had a couple months up to 60, it turned into about half of that). Anyhow, I just wanted to say that yes, WOW copied, ripped off, or made use of every major or minor MMO feature which came out. What they did differently was how they approached a player retention model. It was "casual" (compared to the other offerings at the time).
But to say that MMOs before WOW were not inventive, or were all EQ clones, wasn't even close to the truth. And to attribute the "lack of success" that the other MMOs had... that's just ludicrous. They were insanely successful. And, if I may say, a bit of "re-writing history". WOW got people into the game through the sheer amount of money they were pouring into TV ads, online ads, and pretty much every media outlet. They kept those players by having a simple, easy-to-play on-rails game that wasn't overly harsh on players or complicated to understand.
As to EQN, I think the dev team is on the right track with innovative ideas. Whether they actually come to fruition or not is another matter entirely, and will be what make it a WOW-killer or not. As far as Titan, there was a reason Blizzard went back to the drawing board last year, and I suspect it was industry inside information about what was on the horizon in the MMO genre. Stupid, they are not. Will they copy? Of course. But they will do it "better" in many regards than SoE, and it will be several years after EQN and even MMOG 2.5 are released. But EQN (if promises are actually delivered) will see several years in the limelight, if they actually innovate the MMO as we know it. If not, it will end up being a niche game. But their niche games are anything BUT unsuccessful.
I wouldn't put it passed them.
However, Titan's already started development. So unless they feel like they can afford to wait another 3-6 years to release it, there's a limit to what they will be able to steal. They can try and pretend like their game has all the same features (which they did quite often in WoW), but there's a good chance they won't actually be able to replicate the tech being used in EQN, unless they've either:
a) already built their game around the same tech
or
b) decide to completely re-build their game from the ground up.
I have no idea how much resources they've dumped into Titan already, or at what stage of the development process the game currently is. However, if it's even remotely far along, (B) might be difficult to pull off.
supposedly 5 different games will be using Voxel farm tech -- will Blizzard be one of them ?
http://voxelfarm.com/vfweb/games.html
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/-indies-did-this-how-voxel-farm-and-storybricks-are-helping-to-shape-everquest-next-
EQ2 fan sites
I assure you, I'm far more educated and knowledgeable about these IPs than you seem to be and I'm right on the mark, actually.
If you want to make such examples then Warhammer "borrowed" from LOTR. Yes, of course, each game builds off each other this isn't news. I'll direct you to my sig.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
If Blizzard copies anything good from EQN and do it better (like they have been doing since WoW launched) then i hope it is to add it in WoW.
Titan can be as good as hell but im sticking to what i like, the Warcraft Lore.
It doesn't really matter. The ones with the better game will come out on top, copying won't affect the outcome.
I remember when Warhammer Online was coming out; some people were under the impression that because Warcraft copied Warhammer, automatically that'd make Warhammer kill Warcraft. It did not.
Copying is irrelevant to success beyond making good choices about what to copy.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615